His first starring role in They Live by Night is considered by many critics to be one of his finest film performances. Set during the Depression, the movie chronicles the romance of a young couple trying to escape the small-town life of crime in which they have become ensnared. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder case, Granger and co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as two affluent young men, who set out to commit the perfect murder
»

So there's this meme going around that Paolo tagged me with. So why not? The idea is that you list 15 directors, mainly off of the top of your head, that contributed to the way you experience and think about the movies. This is not a list of my all time favorites though half of the list would probably overlap. This is the list I come up with when I think briefly on the formative masterminds and/or the ones that have or had some sort of claim on my soul if you will. Three of them I could definitely live without at this point but I'm trying to be honest about the exercize.

While I always recommend Blu-ray over DVD, if you’ve never seen any of these classic films, this box set is an awesome way to start. Hit the jump for more details but remember Amazon’s Gold Box Deal’s are only for one day.

A trip to the cinema to see Buried leaves James in a bewildered, philosophical mood, and left contemplating the meaning of life, death, and Raging Bull…

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

This week's column contains a major spoiler for the film Buried if you haven't seen it yet.

In slow motion black-and-white, I see a lone man in a leopard skin robe dancing around a boxing ring clouded by smoke. The stirring strings of the intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana sweep over the scene and the opening titles appear on the right of the screen. That's a majestic way to open a motion picture.

Yes, let's collectively cast our minds back to Raging Bull. In fact, let's grab the Raging Bull by the horns, because that's what the clichéd metaphor demands.

It came to be frowned upon, spelling out a film's storyline on the poster and giving little beyond that. Yet, even before the age of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, two men synonymous with the art, people were making high concept movies. And perhaps none did it better than Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window, The Birds, Strangers On A Train and countless others could all be lumped under that banner. Though you suspect that Hitchcock's motives were less about the easy sell, and
»

If you’d like to boil it down to its simplest form, "Buried" -- opening in a limited release this Friday and going wide on October 8 -- is a movie that features actor Ryan Reynolds in a box. Which is, coincidentally, precisely how I like my Ryan Reynolds served up (preferably with a bow on top, delivered overnight express to my front door). Obviously, upon first hearing the premise, my feminine sensibilities were intrigued.

As for the rest of you, I’m not surprised that the concept is a harder sell. After all, the entirety of the film is set in a coffin. That’s 94 minutes of a dude in an 84x28x23-inch space. What Reynolds’ character, Paul Conroy, endures over those 94 minutes is an intense, claustrophobic, emotional ride (complete with multiple action sequences inside the wooden casket – believe it!). Not only is the film an adrenaline rush until the bitter end,
»

With his latest film Inception grossing over $271m to date in North America, director Christopher Nolan has officially overtaken fellow countryman Ridley Scott to become the most financially successful British filmmaker of all time. This is a marvellous achievement when you consider the fact he's made just seven features and banked a hefty $1.156b overall compared to Scott’s cumulative gross of $1.124b from eighteen movies (while The Dark Knight accounts for $533m of Nolan’s figure, debut feature Following grossed just $48k from a limited release).

Nolan currently stands at number fourteen in the list of highest-grossing filmmakers and with much of his career - not to mention a third Batman picture - still to come, it's surely just a matter of time before he breaks into the top ten. But where does he rank in terms of Britain’s best ever directors?
»

You open your eyes and are greeted by nothing but darkness. Fumbling around blindly, you can tell that you're in tight quarters but there's no obvious way out. Discovering a butane lighter in your pocket, you flick it on and discover the grim truth of your situation: You are completely sealed inside a plywood box with no aid of any kind beyond what's in your pockets.

This is the ride you take for 94 minutes with yan Reynolds, who plays kidnapped, Iraq-stationed civilian contractor Paul Conroy in director Rodrigo Cortés' sophomore feature "Buried." MTV spoke with Cortes as part of our ongoing Fall Movie Preview week — the Sundance-spawned thriller will be released by Lionsgate on October 8 — and he admits that the
»

For a director whose work began in pre-war England, quietly crafting black-and-white classics such as The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, his later rise to colossal fame in Hollywood was unprecedented. Within the space of a few decades, he was one of America's most bankable filmmakers and, for a time, each
»

It takes place in London in 1979, but it very well could be San Francisco, 2010. Sus couldn’t be more topical, in light of recent racially-charged fatalities, and the institutional racism that’s still very much the fulcrum of human relations today. Thus, it’s maddening that little appears to have changed over a 30-year period, despite rhetoric that suggests otherwise. No “post-racial” world here.

There likely isn’t a more recognizable representation of this macro than the well-documented incendiary relationship between men of the law and men of the African Diaspora, which goes back ions. And it is a brand of that particular power struggle that plays out in Sus; and as is often the case, I’m not so sure that there are ever really any winners or losers. Just more damaged men; and if they’re lucky, men who live to hopefully learn something from the experience – an
»

It’s a low-budget, b-grade exploitative genre flick; but I’d also consider it something of a guilty pleasure, with Ice-t being the weakest link. This was made 3 years after New Jack City (another guilty pleasure), and Ice’s acting skills don’t seem to have much improved over that time period, during which he co-starred in 4 other films.

It’s one of several adaptations of Richard Connell’s short story, whose basic concept has been borrowed for numerous films – inverting the, at the time, fashionable
»

Well, get in line cause it appears that a "mystery director" might beat you to it. First, there's this tweet from Production Weekly:
Rko is in negotiations to pickup Craig Stiles' script "The Architect," described as a Hitchcock’ian thriller, set in Dubai.
Here is a bit more from /Film:
Craig Stiles‘ screenplay The Architect has been going around Hollywood since February, and has finally found a buyer in Rko. The contemporary Hitchcockian Thriller is said to be more akin to North by Northwest than Vertigo of Strangers on a Train. I’ve heard that it will probably draw more comparisons to Taken or Breakdown.The story follows Mitch Avery, a New York City hot-shot up and coming architect who gets the opportunity of a lifetime — to build his dream building in Dubai. Once on the ground on the Arabian Peninsula, all hell breaks loose. Of course, this is just the begining.
»

I must confess to a prejudice: I hate films that don’t change spaces. At the theatre, it doesn’t matter to me if there are no set alterations and every scene takes place in the same location; when it comes to film, I want to move from one space to another. This may sound like an ontological assertion about what film should be, based on the nature of the medium: because montage (the process of sticking two pieces of film together) and the portable movie camera make it possible for film to explore a wide variety of spaces, any self-respecting film therefore must do just this. No, my feeling of claustrophobia when I watch a film that takes place in a single room is surely subjective, although maybe a sense of the camera as a caged bird has something to do with my reaction. Happily I’ve successfully avoided
»

Director Adam Mason (Blood River) will release his feature Pig to online audiences Saturday, April 17th @ 6pm Pst. Horror news sites Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, and Twitch Films will post the feature, which was partially shot in a "70 minute take" (Dread). Also reviewed at Dread Central, Pig has been described as being "really tough to sit through. Every time you think that it can't possibly go any further down the road of depravity, it does" (Dread). Films with continuous long takes include Snake Eyes (5-7 mins') with Nicholas Cage, Rope from director Alfred Hitchcock (10 mins'), Oldboy (5 mins') and apparently Children of Men (4-6 mins'). However, no film promises seventy minutes plus. So, fans will have to check out Pig this Saturday to see if Mason's film is still coherent with such a long shot. More details below.

Both Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were inspired by the real-life crimes of mass murderer Ed Gein; The Silence of the Lambs, book and film, incorporated character traits of multiple serial killers in the depiction of Jame Gumb, the psychopath hunted by FBI agent Clarice Starling — with a little help from the imprisoned Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, himself a (still-mysterious) amalgam of stranger-than-fiction monsters of past and present.

While the profoundly disturbing thriller Se7en reeked with authentic nihilism, and films like Dawn of the Dead and Hostel took blood-soaked pains to offer satiric commentaries on the sorry state of humanity, there’s an entire genre of films that bypass the more commercial goals of “escapism” in favor of more directly dramatizing the horrific tales we’ve read about in the newspapers, pored over in paperback, or seen described
»

One of Hitchcock's best films, available online for free? What are you waiting for? Alfred Hitchcock made The Lady Vanishes in 1938, and it was widely considered to be the culmination of all his work up to that point. It uses a unique blend of comedy and suspense, and the two elements are playfully, masterfully mixed and intertwined to enhance one another, such as a lengthy scuffle with a suspect in the baggage car. It creates nervous laughter.

Iris (Margaret Lockwood) is an independent young lady traveler, who is about to embark on the last leg of her journey, returning to England to marry. Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) is a happy-go-lucky musicologist who annoys everyone with the noise from his hotel room. Gilibert and Iris hate each other at first, which pretty much assures that they will fall in love. On her way to the train, Iris gets bonked on the head,
»

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films, as ranked by the users of the biggest movie Internet site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of The Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case, we, is myself and Barry) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list! We’ve frozen the list as of 1st January this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as we’ll be watching them in one year, 125 each.

This is our forth update, a rundown of my next five movies watched for the project and for those that listened
»

Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film 'Rope' will be screened alongside
episode 4 of 'Psychoville' - the sublime homage to that film, with everyone's
favourite mother and son serial killers, David and Maureen Sowerbutts centre
stage & on the big screen. There will also be an Q&A with Steve and
Reece following the screening.

The Phoenix Cinema is one of the UK's oldest
cinemas in the UK & one of

London's leading independent cinemas, as well
as being Steve and Reece's local cinema.

This event is a charitable trust
as a non-profit making organisation. Tickets for the 'Psychoville' event are
£15.00 for adults & concessions are £13.00. All money raised will support
the Phoenix Cinema's Centenary Restoration Project, which goes towards restoring
the Grade II listed building.

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films, as ranked by the users of the biggest movie Internet site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of The Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case, we, is myself and Bazmann) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list! We’ve frozen the list as of 1st January this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as we’ll be watching them in one year, 125 each. Click here to keep up with our progress.

This is our second update, a rundown of my first five movies watched for the project.
»

[Because Sundance is featuring films that have played at other festivals, and Enter The Void happens to be what I consider the best film on the circuit in 2009, here is my review, republished from when I caught it at Tiff. Is the film polarizing? Yes. But also very much worth seeing on as big a screen as possible.]

Enter The Void. The title can pretty much describe Gaspar Noe as a director. His previous films have been dark, wet places where bad things happen, things that stare back at you and darken up your soul for having watched them. Take the infamous Irreversible, which took the current biggest actors-in-their-prime in France (Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci in France, who happened to be married in real life) and had the former commit one of the most graphic onscreen murders I have ever seen (a fire extinguisher to the head of a prone man) and the other raped in long take for about nine single-take painful minutes. So yes, his 'audacious credentials' are well established and we are used to grimy, ugly and difficult to watch cinematography.

So colour me surprised to see him make a beautiful, gliding, movie that never puts off the viewer, but invites them along for the ride.
»

IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.